Analyzing Social Self-Organization and Historical Dynamics. Future Cybernetic W-Society: Sociopolitical Aspects

Leonid Grinin and Anton Grinin look at the forthcoming decades up to the late twenty-first century, focusing on two important processes of development. The first of them is technological changes connected with a new technological wave or, in the authors’ terms, the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution. This technological revolution will result in the widespread introduction of self-regulating systems. The second one is the process of global aging, which will influence more and more all spheres and relations in future society. As a result of the two processes, a society will emerge, which Leonid Grinin and Anton Grinin call “cybernetic society” because its formation will be inextricably linked with the completion of the Cybernetic Revolution and its consequences. It will be society, which will have fundamentally new characteristics, and consequently, it will be very different from all previous societies. On the one hand, it will be closely connected with very deep technological changes in the management and regulation of our life at all levels. On the other hand, it is inextricably linked with the process of global aging because aging becomes an integral part of society. As it develops and the institutions adapt to it, no sphere of society will remain unchanged, including technology, economy, consumption, social sphere, ideology, etc. In short, cybernetic society is an elderly society with the institutionalization of age differences, relying almost entirely on smart (cybernetic) technologies and self-regulating systems. Accordingly, this society will have its strengths and weaknesses, successes, and even triumphs, but it will not be free from some serious problems. Cybernetic society must go through a difficult path of social frictions, conflicts, and optimizations before many things become institutionalized. Techno-social regulation has important advantages, but it also includes violence against the will and freedom of people. Therefore, a long way is required to optimize regulations to consider a variety of needs, desires, and problems. Even short-term regulation with the help of technology during the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how painful it could be for societies.